DENSO International America and Peloton Technology have entered into an investment agreement to accelerate the latter’s development and deployment of platooning technology.

Peloton develops platooning systems that advance safety and fuel savings for large truck transportation fleets.

The $16m Series A investment round was jointly led by Denso and Intel Capital.

"Denso believes that Peloton’s system has the potential to help increase safety and fuel savings in the transportation industry."

The platooning technology aims to increase fuel economy and improve safety for the global trucking industry.

It uses vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) wireless communication and radar, to pair trucks to travel closely together and therefore create an aerodynamic system that is similar to drafting in race cars.

The use of the technology provides trucks with a direct communication system that helps improve braking and acceleration time, increase safety and reduce fuel costs.

Denso International America corporate ventures director Tony Cannestra said: "As a leader in vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) technologies, we are eager to work closely with Peloton to implement the first large-scale deployment of a V2V system.

"Denso believes that Peloton’s system has the potential to help increase safety and fuel savings in the transportation industry."

Denso has been researching and developing V2X technology systems since more than a decade in order to allow cars to communicate with surrounding vehicles and traffic signals.

The use of this technology has the potential of reducing the fuel consumption of large fleet of trucks by approximately 10% for the rear truck and 4.5% for the front truck.